A move from Oregon to Vermont (3,003 miles) has consumed much of my last five months. In June, it comes true. A blue house with a pond and mice in the walls. I haven't written much, but I've touched everything I own and evaluated it in some way, communed with it. Even my headless doll. For more of my poetry, triciaknoll.com

​Why Would You Want To Move 3,003 Miles to Vermont?

Someone had to ask. So, many did. From a place as perfect as Oregon. Yes, I know about Lyme’s disease,shots for dogs but not for people,the yuck pinch-it blood-swell of ticks. Cold clamps bitter, unrelenting, certain.They say the state has four seasons: freezingat the start, thaw to mud, then bugs,and leaves that draw peepers up northwith their cars that clog the freeways.

Left coast to join lefties on the east side. Feel the Bern. First state to legalizegay marriage. The legislature says yesto marijuana. First ski lift. Ethan Allenhad the gall to attack Montreal.

I know trees and woods. I’ve seen maplein pipelines, creamees, bacon and cotton candy. Let me sniff steam in the maple sugar shack. Let me see the tom with his turkey harem high-stepping over browned-out pasture. Or hear the loons moan and trill up at Noyes Pond. Watch the males offer red eyes to the girls.

As for sub-zero’s, I’ve got stoves, fleeces, flannel, down, and duvets. As snow tiptoes in on wind, aweis rain turned to crystal. Rain to skate on.

I have nowhere I have to go, wrapped up with poems of the palace women of China,Rilke, Szymborska, a vast library luggedfrom Stafford to Frost.

I can migrate from Tillamook to Cabot cheese. I believein creatures of the deep, Champ. I may shoo away the beaverschewing down my peninsula.

Vermont is where my daughter is. The girl who brought home the first deer of the seasonwhile the men went up north to deer camp.She tagged unblemished road kill,freshest deer the butcher ever skinned.

The Value of a Home

Pinpointing what it’s worth, whenthere’s a place where dog pee stainedthe fir floor black, where someoneelse’s child chiseled nonsenseon the inside of a closet door,where your mutt scratched upanother door trying to get outof the laundry room, our lovemaking by the fireplace, theChristmas tree corner with greenlights, a deck where poetry flowedinto the woods, enough waterin the creek it might be crying.

Am I forgetting the spoton the floral rug where we married? Of course not, but in the midst of figuringamenities (solar panels, a view to the woods,rooms of light and the owl sounds at night),come to mind cardboard under church awnings,flapping tents in dry-wind camps, but you knew I’d go there, didn’t you? To the hives, caves, burrows,shells, hollows, where they have to take you inuntil time doesn’t want you anymore. Some appraiser with a clipboard demands you move on, go west, or follow the food and only in dreamscan you go back and even theneverything has changed.

This poem is being featured in a juried multimedia exhibition called Migration Stories (in conjunction with World Refugee Day) at the Multnomah Art Center in Portland for the month of June.​

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